TOPIC: Monty Python final show broadcast live to theatres

Monty Python final show broadcast live to theatres
27 Apr 2014 17:40 #40846

Last night of 10-date run, which remaining members say is their last time working together, to be broadcast to cinemas around the world on 20 July
Mark Brown, arts correspondent
Thursday 24 April 2014
The Guardianwww.theguardian.com/culture/2014/apr/24/...-big-screens-20-july
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It will be the last time to see them together before they pass on, before they cease to be. Before they kick their buckets, shuffle off their mortal coils, run down their curtains and join their bleeding choirs invisible (metaphorically that is, not literally).
They will be ex-Pythons, but for fans there is good news. Monty Python's last live reunion show is to be broadcast simultaneously to 450 cinemas in the UK and a further 1,500 across the world, it was announced on Thursday.
Picturehouse Entertainment said it had secured the distribution rights to one of the cultural highlights of 2014, if not of all time for the true diehards: the reunion of John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin for a 10-night run at London's O2 in July.
It plans to broadcast the Last Night of the Pythons Live on 20 July – cheering news for anyone struggling to get their hands on the few remaining tickets that exist.
Picturehouse Entertainment is the distribution arm of Picturehouse Cinemas and has previously been involved in cinema broadcasts of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode and productions by the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and the Bolshoi Ballet.
The company's head of commercial development, Marc Allenby, said: "Picturehouse Entertainment continue to push the boundaries of live cinema broadcasts in what is set to be one of the biggest and certainly funniest events of the year."
Monty Python last performed together – including the late Graham Chapman – at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in 1980, and were last on stage in Britain 40 years ago, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.
When the remaining five members – combined age 357, as they are fond of reminding people – announced they were returning for a Monty Python Live (mostly) show, tickets sold out within a minute.
More dates were quickly added, resulting in the 10 scheduled nights now planned.
A statement from the Pythons said: "Thanks to the wonderful invention of moving pictures, The Last Night of Monty Python is coming to a cinema near you. Get your knotted handkerchiefs out and warm your brains one last time at any one of 450 cinemas across the UK, and 1,500 across the world. Join the crowd live from London's O2 in a final weepy, hilarious, uproarious, outrageous farewell to the five remaining Pythons as they head for The Old Jokes Home … on the big screen, in HD."
A spokesman for Picturehouse said it would be screened in at least 450 British cinemas and across the world in countries including the US, Australia, Sweden, Russia and Poland.
Although there had been speculation that there might be other Python shows outside the UK, Palin recently told the BBC that 20 July really would be it: "It will be a great show, but it is the last time we'll be working together."